


I Listened

by AstroLatte



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Canon Compliant, Gay Keith (Voltron), He isn't sure yet, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance is moping, Lance may have a thing for feet, M/M, Netflix and Chill, Pining Keith (Voltron), Post S7/Pre S8, but literally, mentions of Lance/Allura - Freeform, no beta we die like men, this is so fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 07:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18823777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroLatte/pseuds/AstroLatte
Summary: "Woah!" Keith blinks, stepping into the room and letting the door swish closed behind him. "Lance, how long have you been in here?"Lance's brows furrow as he tries to pinpoint exactly when this latest bout of self-pity started. "A while."After their battle against Sendak, Lance mopes over his love life.





	I Listened

"Lance? You in here?"

"Yeah."

He can tell the answer is muffled by the spoon that's shoved in his mouth, making the delivery of sugary cereal easier for the intake. Keith pushes into the door of the dorm room and does a double-take.

"Woah!" Keith blinks, stepping into the room and letting the door swish closed behind him. "Lance, how long have you been in here?"

Lance's brows furrow as he tries to pinpoint exactly when this latest bout of self-pity started. It was definitely before Allura had blown him off in the hallway to talk to Romelle, but after she seemed to completely ignore his existence once they were all released from the Garrison Hospital. He takes a stab at a guess.

"A while."

"Where's Hunk?"

"With Shay." Lance waves his spoon around like a wand. "It must be nice having a girlfriend you can hang out with instead of being a single sadsack watching fish documentaries and rotting your teeth out with sugary breakfast cereal."

Keith shakes his head, lifting his foot to navigate around the piles of dirty laundry, tossed bags and half-read books to get to the edge of his bed.

Lance isn't sure if Keith's a neat-freak, or just didn't own a lot of stuff, but when they had crashed at his conspiracy shack all those years ago, he definitely had his own chaos brewing. For him to give Lance such a judgmental look as he spread out in his own bed in his boxers and t-shirt eating his tenth bowl of cereal while watching nature documentaries, was frankly hypocritical.

Can't a guy sulk in peace?

The look Keith gives him is withering. "You planning on getting up anytime soon?"

Lance's eyes trail to his laptop screen, where a cluster of clownfish are about to lose their homes in the Great Barrier Reef to climate change. "Nope."

Keith pauses as if seriously considering his next move. Lance shoves another spoonful of cereal in his mouth. It's more milk than sugary flakes, which means he needs to top off his bowl soon or else the ratio of milk to cereal would be disastrous. He hears a sigh and looks up see Keith rubbing the back of his neck.

"Lance."

"Keith."

"Are you...okay?"

Lance pauses, spoon dangling from his mouth as the documentary shows a fast-forwarding of the coral reefs bleaching. His leg has long fallen asleep, and he's not sure exactly was the last time he showered. He still sees the ridges of a fresh scar on his upper thigh from where he took a particularly nasty blow on Sendak's ship.

He doesn't have to say anything for Keith to get that he's not okay.

Keith sighs, his arms crossed over his chest flexing under the fabric of his t-shirt that is really way too tight. Does he not wear clothes that fit anymore? Who's he trying to impress at the school where most of the student body already had a crush on him? Does he need to show off?

Like, we get it, Keith. You got buff Galra Genes. Cool.

Lance takes another slurp of cereal, pouting around the utensil. Keith sighs again, shoving him a bit with his knee. "Move over."

Groaning like he's just been asked to move an entire mountain and not just scoot a few inches into the bed, he complies. Pausing the documentary and shuffling over with his cereal bowl, it gives him the chance to stretch his legs and allows the other boy to sit at the end of the bed. Lance's eyes catch something before he gets too comfortable.

"No shoes on the bed, you animal!" Lance scolds, and Keith rolls his eyes before toeing off the red and black boots. They land on the floor with a heavy thump and Lance's nose wrinkles when he sees Keith's bare feet emerge from inside. "You don't wear socks, man?"

Keith stiffens, almost blushing, as he curls his toes inward as if that's going to make them less conspicuous. Then he stretches them, wiggling his little toes. Lance doesn't know why he's so captivated by his friend's feet, because ew feet are gross and Keith's feet are grosser after being in those boots all day. Except when he rolls his ankles slowly, he's hypnotized, because all Lance can think about is how badly he wants to wrap his hands around them and maybe leave some bruises-

"It's laundry day!" Keith fights, swatting Lance away and pulling him from whatever weird train of thought his mind was going.

Lance can barely reply with a jab before he has a side full of Keith Kogane in his bed, and thankfully covering his sweaty, totally unsexy feet under Lance's sheets.

They get as comfortable as they can in the narrow twin bed, which ends up being Lance leaning his head against Keith's stupid broad shoulder. And honestly, he isn't even mad about it because if Keith was gonna waltz around the Garrison campus looking like an upside-down triangle, then the least he could do was let Lance use him as a personal body pillow.

He pulls his bowl of cereal back to his chest, leaning back to look up at Keith through the fringes of his bangs.

"You good?"

Keith's face twists into an expression that Lance can't read, almost like an amused and indulgent smile. "Yeah, I'm good."

Then Keith leans over to gobble a spoonful of Lance's cereal, and he lets out of yelp in protest and nearly knocks the spoon out of the other boy's mouth.

"Get your own bowl!"

Keith chuckles as Lance pouts, squirming in the bed to pull his spoon back and adjust himself, so he's out of the way of Keith's food stealing moves. He isn't sure exactly when in their friendships he and Keith went from "Don't come within ten feet of me" to "I'm fine if we're within centimeters of each other in a small bed sharing cereal" but it somehow works for them, and Keith doesn't seem to be complaining.

Lance presses play, and they go back to watching more semi-depressing nature stories.

They're almost done with the next episode when Keith taps Lance on the top of the head softly.

"Hey," he murmurs, and Lance cranes his neck back to see a small hint of a sympathetic smile crinkle the corner of his violet eyes. "Is this an Allura thing?"

Lance feels himself deflate and shuffles in the bed, moving his now empty cereal bow to the side against the wall with an audible shrug. "I dunno, man. I just thought that after the Sendak battle...when she wished me good luck...it felt like maybe there was hope?"

Keith gives a noncommittal hum, eyes traveling back to the screen as the narrator drones on about the dangers of melting ice caps and the fragile balance of their ecosystem. Lance narrows his eyes, chin digging into the soft spot of Keith's shoulder.

"What about you?" he demands.

Keith cocks a thick, dark eyebrow. "What about me?"

"Don't act dumb, you gotta be having some sort of romance development in your life," Lance presses. "I saw the way you and Griffin looked at each other. That was some gay-gazing, my man."

Keth grunts and Lance pokes him in the chest. "Ow! Stop, there was no gay-gazing, Lance."

"How'd you know?"

"Cause I do. James isn't into guys, he likes Rizavi."  
  
Lance's eyes widen at the information, "For reals?"

"Yes."

"Huh," he huffs, resting his chin now oddly comfortably on Keith's chest. "I guess that makes sense. Stoic leader-type has a crush on his fun-loving number two."

Keith turns his head away, dark hair covering his face. "Yeah, I guess."

"Bummer, I'm usually good at catching that stuff." Lance hums, tapping his fingers against Keith's chest, enjoying the way the pads of his finger rap against the hard muscle. "Maybe Lover Boy Lance really is losing his touch..."

"Can't lose something you never had."

"Don't think I won't kick you out of this bed, mullet."

Keith snorts, and Lance just scowls at him, too tired and comfortable to do much else. He gets that same undecipherable expression, but it disappears from Keith's face as quickly as it comes. Instead, he shifts Lance over to scroll through the other episodes of the documentary series to find something else to watch.

"Don't worry so much," he grunts, still not looking at Lance, the blue light of the screen reflecting prettily against the pale of his face and the faded mark of his scar. "Allura will come around or she won't. You can't control who likes you, so just be yourself."

"What if nobody likes me for me?"

Keith pauses and turns to Lance, facing him full on. His jaw clenches, and he swallows drily like he's struggling. Eventually, he lands.

"There'll be someone," he promises, and Lance feels his cheeks burn at the confidence. That seems to be the max amount of pep-talk Keith can gauge before being overloaded.

After picking an episode about the savannah, he backs against the headboard so Lance can squeeze against him again. They fall into a comfortable silence that's only broken when one of them makes a comment about the craziness of the animals on the screen.

When Lance slips off into sleep, he wakes up to the feeling Keith's warm breath on his neck as he curls against him snorting lightly, laptop and empty bowl long forgotten.

Lance snuggles closer.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't sleep, so I wrote this instead. Title from "I Listened" by Apes of the State.
> 
> Find me on twitter @Astro_Latte and tumblr Astrolatte!


End file.
